Just Watching and Feeling the Sky
This cartoon about watching the sky is by Luenig, an Australian cartoonist whose funny and child-like wiggly drawing often describe life themes about simply being alive.
The sky was active this past week with a lunar eclipse last Tuesday! At 3:33am this past Tuesday, the full moon would appear red when the Earth would come between the moon and the sun, and the Earth’s shadow would cover the moon. Per the trusted sources, 3:33am was the start of the time you could witness this celestial moon magic in the sky in our city. The lunar eclipse could be visible in its full glory then. Okay, so the night before, we set the alarm for 3:15am. When the time came, we got up surprisingly easily, put on jackets and shoes in the dark. Excited, we stumbled outside, little bits of gravel softly crunching under our feet, feeling we could see in the dark and hoping to see the full moon ablaze with a red color. But oops: not today! The clouds were like a big gray bedsheet covering the whole sky, including the red moon. Maybe we could watch the clouds move, fully knowing that clouds move very slowly across a calm sky. Oh: The wait! We waited a good 15 minutes for the clouds to move, but the sky was unchanged. We realized we might have to be there for at least another two hours before the clouds would break up enough for us to see anything else up in the sky. Sigh! Casually observing the sky with the naked eye is not always successful. It requires a little planning, and also luck. The moon was doing its thing in the sky, snugly in the shadow of the Earth, as it has done for millennia so many times without us. This is humbling: finding out you care about the moon, but the moon does not care about you. Well, not in a human way! The moon generously shares its beauty every day no matter what phase it is in.
We went back to bed.
In the morning, I took my mug of hot tea outside after breakfast, and looked up at the sky for 20 minutes in broad daylight. There were clouds in the blue sky, birds flying through the tree tops, and, every now and then, a gentle breeze.
Just watching the sky for twenty minutes. That’s it.
It is a little practice that is so simple you could miss it. Just watching the sky for twenty minutes has the power to shift the mind and body into states of relaxation and open focus. To do this exercise, it helps to choose a morning when you have 15 minutes to go outside before your day gets too busy. You don’t want to feel rushed. Stay out there for a few minutes and let the air and the sun touch your face and hands. Close your eyes every now and then and imagine your mind becomes the sky, holding all you hear, all you see, and all you feel above you and all around you. You don’t have to think of anything in particular or say anything if you are doing this with another person. Just look up and take in the sky with your mind and senses. Do this for a few minutes, gently watching. Thoughts may come, and that’s okay. Imagine the thoughts appear and disappear in your sky mind like clouds or a passing breeze, or like weather or sounds passing through. After a few minutes of doing this, you may just notice thoughts coming and going and not sticking. Ahhhh. Think and feel only sky!
Watching the sky for a few minutes like this, you may get the sense of big space above you and all around you. Imagining space, sensing space, and feeling into space with your mind can have a relaxing and recharging effect on the mind and body. There is a feeling of making space (and time) for all things and thoughts, sounds and sights. It is a soft open focus, and not the laser-like focus associated with deep concentration and work. In a state open focus, you let your mind become space and make room for everything just as it is. It is a feeling of expansion, but also a kind of acceptance of what is. Breathe in the air as if you could feel the air going into your body, your nose, your throat, your chest, and all the way down to your belly, hips, legs, and feet. Let your whole body become space. Ahhhh.
Just breathing can feel good. Feeling and sensing space, you can just exist and gently take your place in the great field of being.
When you feel complete, you will know when it is time to get back indoors and back to the busyness. My cue that morning was the mug of tea I started with was empty after 20 minutes: yes, I sipped tea as I did this. Before you go back into the busy market place of life again, it helps to cover your eyes for a few seconds with your hands to rest your eyes. Then, take a breath, lower your hands, and smile.
You can watch the sky in so many ways. I have written about watching the sky and watching particularly momentous sky events like solar eclipses. You can also just watch clouds pass during any ordinary day and identify shapes you sense and see up there with your eyes cast upwards and your chin up. Skywatching is both entertaining and educational, but in urban settings or after dealing with screens and devices for stretches of time, it can be balancing and grounding. Skywatching during the daytime gets you outdoors and in the sun for a few minutes (this helps your body produce vitamin D). I watch the sky at different times of the day. The sky is very available and accessible, and it’s a ready bit of nature just waiting to be noticed. You don’t have to drive a long distance to experience it. But natural and quiet settings, like the mountains or the beach, do offer the best views. Spending time with the sky, just paying attention to it, is a way to remember nature and also remember that you, too, are part of nature. Carving out time to do it is worth it. Times I have done this little sky-watching practice, I find that I can ease into the day’s work, adventures and encounters. The sky watching exercise can also be an eye exercise of embracing the blur of the totality of all you see and feel out there in the sky and all around you. Embracing the blur helps your eyes and face relax, and your whole body may follow. The sky-watching practice is a way of sneaking up on meditation. A little goes a long way. Whenever I do it, I feel a sense of gratitude in my heart for just being alive. It makes me feel good about existence.
“Each small step towards simply feeling good about your existence is a mighty triumph over delusion. In short, freedom is a choice.” — Eric Francis, writer, astrologer